Cairo – Like all his peers, nine-year-old Egyptian boy Iyad Mohamed asked his father to buy a toy on the first day of Eid al-Fitr, which the father did immediately, but this did not add the expected joy to his child.
Father Muhammad Fouad was surprised that the imported toy he bought for his son was worth 50 Egyptian pounds (equivalent to $3) with the Star of David imprinted on it, the most prominent symbol of the Jewish religion.
Fouad returned the game to the store he had bought it from, and what caught his attention was that the seller did not argue with him, as sellers usually do in such cases, but rather immediately met his request to get his money back and return the game.
Fouad explained – in press statements – that he resorted to social networking sites to warn parents of the game spread in the markets, as it represents a great danger to children from his point of view, adding that the Zionist entity seeks to consolidate its presence among the new generations by such means, according to his belief.
The news of the existence of a game engraved with the Star of David in the Egyptian markets met with a wide interaction among the pioneers of social media platforms, some of them warned of the danger of children accustomed to seeing Jewish religious symbols because this will extend in time to accept the Zionist presence in their surroundings, describing the matter as poisoning honey.
While others saw that the political and economic normalization with Israel risks greater than a children’s game sold in the markets.
Meanwhile, a number of social media pioneers repeatedly asked about the identity of the importer of such a controversial game, and did he realize the seriousness of the matter or did he do it in good faith.
In front of the interaction on social platforms about the game spread in the markets, the Egyptian Chamber of Commerce’s Writing Tools and Children’s Games Division demanded to stop importing the game and withdraw the quantities offered from it in the local market.
The Secretary of the General Division of Writing Instruments and Children’s Games at the Chamber of Commerce, Barakat Safa, said that the game in question is imported from China, and the quantities available in the Egyptian market are not large.
Safa explained – in a press statement – that the Chamber of Commerce will search for the importer of this game.
In a related context, the official in the Chamber of Commerce said that the demand for buying children’s toys in general is very weak, and is less than last year by about 40%.
For his part, Osama Jaafar, the former head of the stationery and children’s toys division at the Cairo Chamber of Commerce, explained that 50% of the children’s toys in the markets are sold on Eid al-Fitr alone.
And he stressed – in press statements – the continuation of the stagnation in the markets after the closure of famous stores for children’s toys due to the Corona pandemic that swept the world at the beginning of 2020, as well as the spread of electronic games.
According to a report by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (a government agency), the value of importing children’s toys from abroad during the 10 months, from January to October of last year, amounted to about 44 million and 760 thousand dollars.
And imports of children’s toys recorded a noticeable decline this year; Egypt imported games with about 3 million and 521 thousand dollars last January, while the value in the same month of last year reached about 8 million and 664 thousand dollars in January of 2021, a decrease of about 5 million and 143 one thousand dollars.
